"I'm Jacob Black." He held his hand out in a friendly gesture. "You bought my dad's truck."
We had met before but she was not the same girl who Chief Swan used to have at his side. We might as well have been meeting for the first time. She recognized me as Billy Black's son and was on the same page as me that this was not our first encounter. Being the youngest of three kids, and the only boy, I was used to being overlooked. I figured she would remember my sisters, Rachel and Rebecca. The light bulb blinked above her head. We all had at least a vague recollection of those awkward play dates while our dad's fished.
I asked her about the truck.
"Oh I love it. It runs great." She replied, looking back and forth between me and the flames.
Her response surprised me and I had to laugh. I'd expected a polite venting of complaints but she had taken the orange beast to heart. My smile didn't fade. She looked at me questioningly. She really didn't think there was anything wrong with the truck.
"You sure?" I added. It's super slow. I was so happy to see it go to Charlie. Dad wouldn't let me work on building another car with that thing still in the driveway."
She was smiling now but she defended her new, to her, truck. "It isn't that slow." It was her own orange, rusty pumpkin carriage. She obviously hadn't tried going over sixty. I warned her not to and couldn't help but grin. We shared a laugh at the obvious indestructibility of that monster truck.
She asked me about building cars. "I work on them in my free time."I tried to make a joke using my only hobby. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could get a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit would you?"
She laughed apologetically. "Sorry, I haven't seen one but I'll keep my eyes open for you."
I grinned. She didn't speak car. She was very easy to talk to. I couldn't resist flashing her a brilliant smile. I'm pretty sure she caught on that I was comfortable around her. I think I read the same thing in her smile. A girl sitting around the fire interrupted us.
"You know Bella, Jacob?" She was pretty snooty. I was glad I wasn't obligated to remember her name. God knows how she knew mine. She hadn't been paying attention when Sam had introduced us. I answered easily.
"We've sort of known each other since we were born." Bella nodded to agree that I'd summed it up about right.
"How nice." She replied like she couldn't care less. Before I could turn back to Bella, the girl across the fire called out to her this time.
"Bella," she called falsely curious. She was looking at Bella but she was watching me. "I was just saying to Tyler that is was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them?" She was smugly trying to get a reaction out of me. She got one.
"You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?" The girl looked irritated. I hadn't caught on that her shot had been aimed at Bella.
She asked condescendingly if I knew them.
"The Cullens don't come here," I said with finality. My tone had closed the subject and taut silence mixed in the air with faint bonfire smoke.
The girl, whose name I finally heard was Lauren, was drawn away by the boy named Tyler asking her opinion on a CD.
I distracted myself by staring off into the forest behind the fire. I felt Bella's eyes on me. She too felt taken aback by how Same had harshly and authoritively dismissed the question about the Cullens. I could already hear the questions hovering on her tongue. He'd made it a little obvious that there was something about the Cullens that kept them from visiting La Push. I could see the slight discomfort in his eyes. The flames were dancing in them as he stared into the fire. Sam should have been more subtle.
I tried to salvage and redirect my conversation with Bella.
"So is Forks driving you insane yet?"
She scoffed, rolled her eyes and gave me one of those 'that's an understatement' looks. I laughed with her and nodded understandingly.
I could see she was still turning over what Sam had said about the Cullens in her mind and was thinking of a way to bring it up. I was tall for my age but Lauren had seen straight through to my fifteen year old reality and my immediate crush on Bella. Something about the Cullens had to do with Bella or something about Bella had to do with the Cullens. They stayed off our land for a reason and we never went looking for them . Bella was a new friendship I had hoped would grow. Now I feared whatever association she had with 'the cold ones' would prevent it.
She turned around on the log to face towards the woods with me and I turned to catch her staring at me. My naïve little heart fluttered a little. "Do you want to walk down the beach with me," she asked? I jumped to it a little too eagerly. Even under a night sky I was sure my olive skinned flashed a deep red.
As we walked, she stuffed her hands into her pockets. I looked up at the sky and say the clouds had finished closing in around the stars. It was a cool night.
She broke the silence besides the crush of the damp rocks. "So you're, what, sixteen?"
I was happy not everyone could see the shy, awkward pre-teen inside me. Another reason Bella was such a warm company was that she mirrored my shyness. She didn't demand that I fill every silence or that I had to say the most interesting things. She was as happy as I was to just walk and here the echo of our own footsteps.
"I just turned fifteen," I corrected but I would have preferred saying I was seventeen or twenty.
"Really? I would have thought you were older." Her voice was filled with surprise. I thought she was just trying to put less emphasis on the two year gap between us. The way she batted her lashes looked like the wind was blowing sand in her eyes. If it hadn't been Bella, I would have thought she was putting on a very magazine-article attempt at flirting.
"I'm tall for my age."
We were silent for a few moments. Her focus was strictly on me now. "Do you come up to Forks much," she asked? She sounded very hopeful for a yes. Maybe she enjoyed my visits more than I'd thought. In my mind I smirked.
"Not as much as I'd like," I admitted. My voice sprang back with hope. "But I can go up as much as I want"-my tone turned pathetic again-"after I get my license."
She kept the conversation flowing. "Who was that other boy Lauren was talking to? He seemed a little old to be hanging out with us?"
My throat went dry. It was like a mantra in my head. Please don't think he's cute. Please don't think he's cute.
"That's Sam-he's nineteen." Why had I added in his age? That only made me look like I still collected Hot Wheels.
"What was that he was saying about the Cullens before?" She asked this with the innocence of a little kid who was asking to be included in a big kid game. The Cullens ARE the big game around here. I wanted to play it off a little more coolly than Sam had. I still didn't want to admit that Bella had any ties to the Cullens. The curiosity in her voice was undeniable.
I looked out toward James Island. "The Cullens aren't supposed to come onto the reservation."
Of course I knew what was next. "Why not," she asked?
Way to play it off cool. I bit my lip searching for some way out. "I'm not supposed to really say anything about that."
She knew she had hit a box in the sand and was going to try to dig it up. "Oh I won't tell anyone. I'm just curious." She gave me a weak, pleading smile. I had to smile back. Even though the topic wasn't one I'd have chosen, I felt myself melting in the amount of attention she was pouring on me. Maybe there was nothing about her and the Cullens. She's new and must just be fishing for something juicy around here. After all, she was the first one to flinch at the name of Forks.
I raised a mysterious, bushy eyebrow and dropped my voice to sound like the elders did when they told the stories of our tribe. No one ever hinted that the stories were true. I always thought of them as legends or metaphors for the mystical strength and skills of our people. The stories often discussed over bonfires sent the wind rushing around the trunks of trees and made the fire flicker. There was always a respectful hush when the elders spoke of our ancestors who could take the form of wolves. The stories of our ancient enemies were just as chilling and the wind seemed to freeze at the mention of the touch of their cold skin. 'The cold ones' were how they were formally addressed. Now we unaffectionately called them 'blood suckers.'
Bella stared into me intrigued. She was ready to hear more.
"Do you like scary stories," I asked?